oct 23, 1954 - The Hungarian Revolution

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It lasted less than three weeks, from Oct. 23 until Nov. 10, but the Hungarian Revolution that convulsed Budapest and the rest of Hungary in late 1956 sent shock waves through eastern and central Europe that reverberated for decades. More than a few historians, in fact, cite the popular revolt as the first rip in the Cold War's Iron Curtain.
The general lineaments of the 1956 conflict are well-known: In the autumn of that year, hundreds of thousands of Hungarians, in cities and the countryside, rose up against occupying Soviet forces and, critically, against the country's brutal, homegrown secret police, the State Protection Authority. For a few heady weeks, it seemed like the insurgents might actually push the Russians out altogether. By mid-November, though, the Soviet army had regrouped and launched an all-out assault on a nation that was, nominally, both an ally and a protectorate.
Roughly 3,000 Hungarian civilians—men, women, children—were killed during those three weeks. The uprising was crushed. But the ripples of the revolt—the Prague Spring in '68, Poland's Solidarity trade union movement in the 1980s and other rebellions, large and small—were wide-ranging, and long-lasting.